US President Donald Trump says it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Volodymyr Zelensky has not done enough to end his country\u2019s war with Russia and blaming him for high diesel prices in the US<\/p>\n
\u201cI suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
The president, who on Friday struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy diesel from Russia in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections, has been urging Zelensky for weeks to stop strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. <\/p>\n
He has also sought to blame record US diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the US-led war in Iran, which has elevated world energy prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,\u201d Trump said, before departing for Tennessee, where he was set to rally Republican voters.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian and European officials on Saturday reacted to Trump’s diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia’s war efforts. <\/p>\n
Diesel prices have skyrocketed due to a collision of events, including the difficulty of getting oil out of the Middle East since the start of the Iran war, which has raised the price of all oil products.<\/p>\n
Latest attacks from Russia kills at least 21 as Volodymyr Zelensky blames allies for lack of support.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last month and published October 1 found that Americans disapprove of Trump\u2019s handling of Iran, and blame him for higher prices.<\/p>\n
Trump also suggested that if he had been US president in 2022, \u201cthat war would have never started. There was no reason that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zelensky has \u201clost 30% of your country and you\u2019ve had over a million people go between the two of them, over 2 million people killed. That\u2019s a war that should have never started. And I think it\u2019s time for Ukraine to get a new president,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Independent estimates are that about 20% of Ukraine’s territory is under Russian control. <\/p>\n
British defence officials recently estimated that about half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in the war; there are no reliable recent estimates about how many Ukrainians have died.<\/p>\n
Tenby Powell has recently returned to New Zealand after six months in Ukraine providing support to locals near the front line of the war with Russia. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
20 people killed in Russian bombing in Ukraine Saturday<\/p>\n
Trump’s extraordinary intervention came after Russian strikes killed at least 20 people in Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.<\/p>\n
Three children were among those killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. At least 18 people were wounded.<\/p>\n
Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line, more than 4 1\/2 years since Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion. Ukraine is struggling to counter escalating Russian bombardments that have killed more than 60 people over the past four days.<\/p>\n
Anger in Kyiv at Trump\u2019s deal with Putin<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote Saturday on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two leaders want it to end,\u201d Trump said at the outset of the meeting at Mar-a-Lago. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
He said every additional billion dollars Russia earns from exports would help pay for weapons components, drone upgrades, missile production and the recruitment of mercenaries, and that Moscow would only be ready to stop when its ability to fight diminished.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said Ukraine was coordinating steps to counter the extra revenue Russia will receive, and that he had spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron about shoring up air defences, warning of an increased risk of further missile strikes in the coming days.<\/p>\n
Trump announced Friday that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons \u201cimmediately thereafter.\u201d Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons \u201cwithin a short period of time\u201d after that, he wrote.<\/p>\n
In Kyiv, people gathered at a memorial to fallen soldiers on Independence Square greeted the deal with a mix of anger and resignation.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump has once again shown his true face,\u201d said Oleksandr Petrenko, 26. \u201cHe didn\u2019t care about the situation, the shelling or the destruction of our homes. All he\u2019s interested in is oil or the fuel prices and how much Americans have to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Oksana Yakunina, a financial adviser from the central city of Kropyvnytskyi, the announcement \u201cdidn\u2019t really come as a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump has been working with Putin for a long time,\u201d she told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
European allies question US-Russia deal<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s European allies also expressed dismay at the deal and said they stood by their commitment to sanctions.<\/p>\n
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Stockholm regretted the agreement, \u201cas energy revenues are central to the Russian war chest,\u201d and noted that the European Union would adopt its most comprehensive sanctions package yet on Monday, with 1600 listings targeting Russia\u2019s military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n
The German government \u201cremains committed to the sanctions imposed on Russia and is working with its European partners on further sanctions,\u201d spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said, adding that support for Ukraine \u201cremains unwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski questioned whether Russia could deliver at all. Citing his embassy\u2019s reports of fuel shortages even in Moscow, and \u201cserious sources\u201d saying Ukraine has damaged about half of Russia\u2019s refining capacity, he asked on X: \u201cSo where will the surpluses for export come from?\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s announcement was in stark contrast to a sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month that aimed at clamping down on the oil and gas revenues that fuel Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trump announced the deal as his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Ukrainian officials in Miami on Friday to discuss a proposal to end the war.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Friday\u2019s announcement, a senior Ukrainian official told AP that the Ukrainian side was not aware of the deal before the announcement.<\/p>\n
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue publicly, said Saturday the diesel deal announcement was not tied to anything under discussion in Florida.<\/p>\n
He confirmed the Ukrainian delegation had left Florida and were on their way back to Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump says it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Volodymyr Zelensky…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,64,1979,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-627181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-russia-invades-ukraine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}